Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Earning trust and minutes
Sgarbossa shows on ice poise with puck, responsibility
SUNRISE — When the Florida Panthers traded young forward Logan Shaw for former Ontario Hockey League scoring champion Michael Sgarbossa, it was one of those mid-November swaps of minor league players that often goes unnoticed.
That’s certainly not the case for Panthers general manager and coach Tom Rowe. He has not only noticed Sgarbossa, but has grown to trust the well-traveled, 24-year-old center to the extent that he’s putting Sgarbossa on the ice in crunch time while allowing him to take critical draws.
“I like the way he thinks the game, the way he plays,” Rowe said after practice Wednesday. “He’s very responsible defensively … is a competitive kid who’s really poised with the puck and has a really good feel for the game.
“We have confidence in him, so why not reward him?”
Those are sweet words to hear for Sgarbossa, who went undrafted despite leading the OHL with 102 points in 2011-12 before toiling in the AHL for parts of the last four seasons with three different organizations.
Since being acquired from the Anaheim Ducks for Shaw on Nov. 16, Sgarbossa, an Ontario native, has played 15 games for the Panthers, who are 7-5-3 with him in the lineup.
Sgarbossa has two goals, including his first NHL goal in a 4-3 overtime loss to Edmonton on Jan. 18, and then notched his first multi-point game in Tuesday’s 6-5 victory over the Senators with two assists. He’s winning 48 percent of his faceoffs, better than veteran centers Aleksander Barkov and Nick Bjugstad. Paltry faceoff numbers are partly why young centers Jared McCann and Denis Malgin are in the AHL.
“Each game I feel like I’m getting more and more confidence out there,” said Sgarbossa, pronounced
Scarbossa. “The coach’s trust in me is always big for young players getting called up. I have to keep playing the right way, keep doing the things that have gotten the confidence from [Rowe] in the first place.
“Like [Jonathan Marchessault] has done, it’s my turn now with some of the unfortunate injuries I got my shot, and I’m trying to make the most of it.”
In the minors, Sgarbossa had it drummed into him that his goal-scoring skills were fine, but without defensive-zone responsibility he wouldn’t find a home in the NHL. Besides working on his faceoff prowess, Sgarbossa heeded the advice, and currently leads the Panthers in allowing opponents 6.3 fewer shots when he’s on the ice, ahead of Barkov’s 4.75.
“I was always told to be a complete player and play on the next level I had to improve my D-zone coverage and faceoffs,” said Sgarbossa, who’s averaging more than 15 minutes of ice time over his past five games. “Once you do those things they can trust you in the offensive zone.”
The trade has worked out for both teams as Shaw, 25, who played 56 games, including three playoff games for the Atlantic Division champion Panthers last season, has three points in 32 games in 9:42 ice time for Anaheim.
Friday night, Shaw and Sgarbossa will get to show their former teams what they’re missing.
“You want to make them pay for making it seem like they got rid of you,” said Sgarbossa, who had two assists in nine games for the Ducks this season.